


Last Love Song

by Sketch_A_Bow



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Because it's DEEP, Book References, But it ends happy, Feels, Get it?, I'll leave now, John Green book references, M/M, Ocean references, Promise, Songfic, Then I quit, and if that isn't a warning, okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:43:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1442194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sketch_A_Bow/pseuds/Sketch_A_Bow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by 'Last Love Song' by ZZ Ward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVmeIEnKBTw</p><p>I give fair warning, this isn't a very happy fic, but it does improve by the end.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Last Love Song

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by 'Last Love Song' by ZZ Ward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVmeIEnKBTw
> 
> I give fair warning, this isn't a very happy fic, but it does improve by the end.

 

     Their life wasn’t perfect. Perfection is a false ideal that turns people bitter with its unattainable nature. Or so his husband said. And he tried to never contradict Bilbo. So their life wasn’t perfect. It was very content. Happy. Warm. Vivacious. All the words he could steal from Bilbo’s papers and throw at the sunny picnic days and snuggly movie nights that made up their life together. Fights happened, as they would, more often a routine display of Thorin’s anger at something intangible bubbling over than any real malcontent between them. They were usually low points on the horizon of what life was and could be, but Bilbo just brushed it off with the sage advice of, ‘everyone needs low points to distinguish just what the high points are.’

 

     Which was just one of the many, many reasons Thorin loved him. He was so full of words, words to explain and soothe or educate, but never to cut or hurt. He had a way of looking at the world that others loved to see, and it brought him joy to share it in turn. Not to mention a steady income. And Thorin had his office job, not anything he threw himself into with a great passion, but one that paid the bills and allowed enough margin for the things they both enjoyed doing.

 

     So his life wasn’t perfect, at least not out loud where Bilbo could hear. The definitions between the two were almost identical in his mind though. The only smudge he could even find to pick at was the quiet. It hadn’t really started until a few weeks ago, and the lack of fighting had actually been the warning flag. Bilbo had heaps of spirit to balance out his smaller frame, and he was quick to bite back when Thorin’s anger got the better of him. But lately it seemed like the spark had dulled to an ember. Snarky commentary got a halfhearted response, and when he could get a rise out of his husband, it guttered after a few minutes. Bilbo seemed constantly tired, and Thorin was trying to not become paranoid that his love was pulling away.

 

     Was he having an affair? He was surprised that the idea didn’t even hurt, because he couldn’t believe it enough. There had just never been anyone else. Even if Bilbo was seeing someone, he didn’t know exactly how he would react except to just take it and continue on. His life revolved around Bilbo, and there was nothing beyond that circle. The version of himself that would exist without Bilbo's influence wouldn't be anyone worth being and certainly wouldn't be someone good to know. 

 

     The resolve to bring the matter up was just reaching pressure when Thorin woke up on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Rolling over for a good-morning kiss, he was met instead with cool sheets. Maybe there was breakfast in the bargain? Surprise morning meals hadn’t happened since Bilbo started pulling away, and the happy grumble of his stomach was matched with a hopeful swelling of his chest. Perhaps all his worrying had been over nothing.

 

     But the kitchen was empty. The cold stainless and gleaming countertops faced him with a foreboding air, and his eyes felt ominously drawn to the lone sheet of paper curled upon the island.

 

     Picking it up, Thorin felt a wave of calm wash over him at the familiar scrawling handwriting, even as the words themselves betrayed him.

 

 

_This is the Last Love Song I’ll Ever Write for You_

     When he read the first line, it was as being at the point of the ocean where the water gets so deep it loses the light.

 

_I won’t wake up and pick out your tie, oh no_

_You won’t come home and kiss me at night, oh no_

_We won’t lie in that king bed for two_

_Say goodbye to us saying ‘I love you’_

_That's all done with now_

 

     Each line was another blow

 

 

_Take these chocolates and this Jameson, oh no_

_Find a subway that I can sit in, oh no_

_All these notes and all these words_

_Are all that’s left in me_

_Burn these pages, count your woes_

_One last song to set us free_

 

 

     As Thorin read the final line, scrawled hastily and marred by a tearstain, he was hanging in the deep black where most life ceases to exist.

 

 

     He ran.

 

 

     It was only by the grace of knowing him so well that Thorin found his husband at all. Sliding down the slope into the old abandoned section of the park, he saw the hunched shoulders rising above the bench like the silhouette of something broken. Bilbo didn’t even raise his head as he approached. Feeling like a stranger, Thorin stopped a few feet away. Glancing at the small, tattered suitcase tucked near Bilbo’s feet tore at something in his core.

 

     “Knew I should have gone somewhere else. But I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.” Bilbo let a humorless laugh escape. “I really am hidebound.”

 

     “Bilbo.” Thorin wanted so desperately to touch him, but felt an invisible wall separating the man he had once known from the one now sat before him. “Please, just tell me what’s going on. I wake up, you’re gone, nothing but a note that terrifies me, and a stranger taking possession of my husband’s body.”

 

     Bilbo’s hands hung limply between his knees, and when he finally spoke, his voice came out weary and dull. “What’s going on, you beg to know? I don’t think you’ll enjoy the answer really.” A ragged breath was drawn in, and as it was used to express his words, Bilbo seemed to fall in on himself.

 

     “I. Have –“ he choked a bit before grinding the last word out.

 

     “Cancer.”

 

     If he could have split himself into several beings, Thorin might have been prepared. He hung upon the realization, a doll with cut strings, each different emotion vying for control over his limbs.

 

     “Where?”

     “Oh, several places. Got a whole colony.”

 

     Thorin smiled despite himself, the sarcasm a familiar buoy in the madness.

 

     “How long have you known?”

 

     Bilbo took longer in answering this time. “A smidge more than a month.”

 

     “Why didn’t you just tell me?” He felt angry, and confused, but mostly answers were all he wanted.

 

     Bilbo was still holding strong, but the edges were starting to crumble.

 

     “Because… Because I thought if I left that way, you would be angry at me. I thought that the anger would be better, could help fuel you to get over me, to find someone else. If I had stayed, and told you, I knew what the outcome would be, because you’re too good to me, and I don’t deserve you. You would have stayed, and watched me slowly dissolve, until there was nothing left to mourn, and you would just… remain, as a broken man. And that was something I couldn’t handle.”

 

 

     Bilbo paused to sniff, and Thorin realized that tears were silently tracking down his face. He continued with a shaky voice.

 

     “It’s difficult, knowing that I am broken, that I can’t be fixed. But it’s something I can’t change, I have to come to terms with it and be ok. But I couldn’t be the reason you were broken too.” He buried his face in his hands, speaking through the quiet sobs. “God, I’m so selfish. I would still take every second I had with you, if I could do it over. Even knowing how it would end, what I would do to you. I would still take all of it. I wish I was stronger. I wish I had never met you, so that I could spare you all this. But I wish even more that I could have more time; that I could relive all of our fights, because even fighting with you is better than knowing what I’m going to do.”

 

     Thorin rushed forward and caught the smaller man just as he slumped forward off the bench. Petting the familiar curls gently, he whispered soothing nothings over the head pressed into his chest. He couldn’t understand what Bilbo was trying to get out between the heaving sobs being ripped from his frame. But when he finally could, it broke his heart.

 

     “I don’t want to be a bomb.”

 

     He knew exactly where the line had come from, only because Bilbo had been so desperately in love with John Green that Thorin wholeheartedly believed he would be a single man, if the author was otherwise inclined. The fact that he had seen the tattered paperback floating around the flat more often recently was the final blow for him.

 

     Bodily, he picked up Bilbo and swung his legs up until he was carrying the smaller man bridal-style. The walk back to their home was one of a man slowly falling apart while the other grew his resolve.

 

 

 

~Six Months Later~

 

 

 

     He didn’t even complain anymore. Thorin smiled at the tiny accomplishment as he lifted his husband from the passenger seat of the car and swept into the house. While their relationship used to be largely based on Bilbo good-naturedly bullying Thorin into whatever actions needed to be taken, the roles had reversed a bit now. Thorin had brooked no argument, starting with the implementation of Bilbo’s treatment. Several referrals had found them a doctor who was positive on the chances of fighting off the cancer, and Thorin had quit his job to stay home. Bilbo seemed to be constantly surprised at the support that came from all corners. Their friend Bombur would ‘drop by’ with soups and casseroles, and Dwalin got his biker gang to help promote a fundraiser to cover medical bills. Joys of all sizes were realized; the months had been on their side. It was still a long way to the safety mark, but Bilbo took a ridiculous amount of joy in quipping about how he was ‘on a rollercoaster that only goes up.’

 

     Thorin was just glad to have his old Bilbo back.

 

 

~~Finis~~

 


End file.
